China Finds New Food Source in Former Rival Russia

Try imagining what it’s like feeding well over a billion people. That’s what the situation in China is like right now. Of course, its own food production systems can’t accommodate all of those mouths, so the country has had to look elsewhere to feed its growing population. One of the most surprising places? Its one-time communist rival Russia, to whom it paid $1 billion for food last year, according to the Wall Street Journal.

That give-and-take works out well for the Russians, who are dealing with low oil prices and a new set of sanctions put in place right before President Obama left office. What are the Chinese after? “Frankly, they want everything,” Petr Shelakhaev, head of the Russian government’s Far East Investment and Export Agency, told the WSJ. “Everything that can be consumed by a human being in China is something they’re interested in.”

What gets top billing, though, is Russian meat: pork, chicken, and beef, to be exact. Food has become such a major point in the two countries’ foreign relations that the two even exchange gifts of food at high-level meetings. Recently, President Vladimir Putin presented Xi Jinping, the president of the People’s Republic of China, with some of his favorite Russian ice cream.